If the first debate between GOP Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke was a knife fight, neither candidate emerged unscathed.

While Cruz ended the night with a backhanded compliment branding O'Rourke as a tireless advocate of "socialism," the Democrat got in the dismissive last words on Cruz's heavy-handed attack: "True to form."

But Friday night's bout in Dallas, the first of three, provided no big gaffes of the sort that define debates or obvious "home runs" that might linger throughout the remainder of the Texas U.S. Senate race. It also served to delineate useful differences that both candidates will be able to take to voters.

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Fox 26 News Special coverage of the first debate in the U.S. Senate race between Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke

Video: Fox 26 Houston

"It's helpful to have two articulate candidates from opposite parties engage so spiritedly and defiantly in presenting their versions of Texas," said Sean Theriault, a political scientist at the University of Texas in Austin. "Is it the Texas that elects people like (Christian conservative Lt. Gov.) Dan Patrick by big margins, or has the future long promised by demographers finally arrived?"

The debate also shed light on the two candidates' campaign strategies in the last six weeks of a race that some national analysts now rate as a toss-up.

"Cruz needs to get his base to the polls," Theriault said. "O'Rourke needs more than his base to vote for him. While the challenger made overtures to independents and moderates, the incumbent focused his message on making sure that his supporters — the president's supporters – show up and vote."

Many observers rated Cruz, a former presidential candidate, the more practiced and polished performer.

"If this were a boxing match, Cruz would get the judges' decision but would exit the ring having taken some serious blows," said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political scientist.O'Rourke, by comparison, seemed less fluid and aggressive. "O'Rourke showed he can stick and move but needs to get a knockout in the town hall debate coming up," Rottinghaus said.

To some analysts, Cruz's polished performance showed his experience in the major debate format. One example was Cruz's defense of his new-found alliance with President Donald Trump – once a bitter rival who insulted Cruz's family during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries.

"The transition of the Trump problem from a negative to a positive was the most impressive feat of the night," Rottinghaus said. "Cruz made O'Rourke look trigger happy on impeachment and explained how he worked with Trump to make the economy better."

While defending Trump's proposed border wall – an article of faith in the conservative base – Cruz was able to force O'Rourke into a liberal policy space on police shootings, law enforcement, illegal immigration and drug legalization.

But Cruz also was forced to blunt O'Rourke's attacks on GOP health care proposals by conceding the need to cover preexisting conditions and pivoting to the problem of increasing premiums.

To Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson, the candidates won and lost different questions in different ways.

"The question both of them had trouble with, almost unexpectedly, was the guns issue," Jillson said. "Cruz wants to make the charge that O'Rourke would support judges and legislation that would remove people's guns. And O'Rourke wanted to make the argument that 'weapons of war' have no place in the street or in the classroom, and he described what an AR-15 does to a person who's hit."

Both made their points, Jillson said, but then both might have gone too far.

"Where Cruz kind of got off track was when he said that the removal of prayer from schools was one of the causes of gun violence," Jillson said. "That will resonate with some voters, but that's kind of a base-of-the-base argument on the Republican side."

Jillson saw Cruz recover against O'Rourke's snappy retort that "thoughts and prayers ... are not going to cut it."

"Cruz came back and said 'I pray for anyone who's in trouble,' which I thought was a broader kind of conservative rejoinder," Jillson said.

At bottom, Jillson saw the 90-second-answer debate format as a built-in advantage for Cruz, who he called the more "tactically wily" of the two.

"They're very different people, with Cruz being very aggressive and often ending his answers with a sort of bumper sticker accusation or charge, in an attempt to get O'Rourke off message," Jillson said. "He's had a lot of practice at that 90-second answer, and that's something you've got to learn. It's not something you do naturally, particularly for O'Rourke, because he's a long-form orator. It's JFK. It's MLK. There's cadence to it, but it goes on for paragraphs."

Either way, the two candidates' contrasting appeals to Texas values came through loud and clear. The opposing messages also were leavened through Cruz's attacks and O'Rourke's efforts to remain upbeat.

"When Cruz talks about Texas values, he sort of imagines himself on the ramparts of the Alamo," Jillson said. "You know, the Mexicans are coming. It's freedom. It's liberty. It's me against tyranny. Whereas O'Rourke was much broader. It was about families, parents taking care of children and schools that work, that kind of stuff. That sort of narrow, traditional view of Texas values, while true enough, in a debate setting, doesn't quite resonate the way talking about someone's kids does."

The final measure of that contrast emerged with the moderators' appeals to each candidate to find something nice to say about the other.

"It's a light into their respective souls and strategies," Jillson said. "O'Rourke, given the opportunity to say something nice about Cruz, said something nice about Cruz. And Cruz, given the opportunity, couldn't bring himself to do it. So he said 'me too' about valuing public service, but then wanted to place the shiv one last time."

As always, different viewers likely will have different and often partisan takeaways from the debate. Election debates rarely move the needle politically, and most analysts said this one will be no different.

But if nothing else, it reinforced popular perceptions of the two candidates.

"Cruz the knife fighter is well-known, and respected if not liked by conservative Texans," Jillson said. "With Cruz, they say, 'I might not want to have a beer with that guy, but if it's a knife fight in the alley, I know he's not going to be disarmed.'

"Whereas people who respond to O'Rourke respond precisely to his ability to sort of rise above the political violence and partisanship."

At bottom, O'Rourke appears to have emerged from the debate as a "blue" challenger in a "red" state who has run a surprisingly strong campaign and performed credibly in a head-to-head contst – always the threshold requirement for a challenger who is running behind in most polls.

In light of a testy Round One, speculation has already begun on what adjustments the candidates will make in the next debate, especially if the polls remain close.

"Round two will be more violent from both sides who seek high stakes," Rottinghaus said, "so we're likely to see more fireworks."

Kevin Diaz came to the Houston Chronicle in February 2014 with more than a decade of experience covering Washington. Before that, he was the chief Washington correspondent for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where he got his start in journalism in 1984 as a night cops reporter. During his tenure in Minneapolis, he won awards for his coverage of gang crime and city hall. He also taught public affairs reporting at the University of Minnesota, where he received his Master’s. After a stint at the Washington (D.C.) City Paper, Kevin went back to the Star Tribune, where he won national awards for articles on globalization and immigration. He also covered the 9/11 terrorist attacks from Washington and New York. Born and raised in Italy, Kevin has reported from Italy, Brazil, Mexico, and Cuba, where he covered Jesse Ventura’s 2002 trade mission. In 2003, he filed daily Iraq War dispatches for McClatchy Newspapers from the U.S. Central Command in Qatar. In 2006, he covered the presidential election standoff in Mexico. He also has covered Washington for the Anchorage Daily News and the Idaho Statesman.